I don’t know what sort of plague has befallen me of late, but I seem to have suffered here lately from spate of experiences with inferior customer service by several companies that I’ve had the misfortune of choosing to do business with. I don’t understand why this has come on all of a sudden. I really hadn’t experienced such a bad run of poor service before in my life. Maybe it’s because only recently I decided to stop beaing such a cheapskate all the time and actually go buy some stuff.

I’ll discuss the least distressful one first, and after you read this and realize that the others must be worse, you’ll wonder how I haven’t found myself a semi-automatic and gone postal at some company’s customer service center by now.

This first episode involved a prescription that I had purchased at the pharmacy of a major discount store which shall remain nameless but rhymes with “fart”. Upon my arrival home with said prescription, I quickly noticed that it had come with no instructions as to the dosage. I looked all over the package, and all it said were “refer to enclosed dosage instructions”, of which there were none.

So, I called the main number of this major discount store, and explained my issue to the person who answered. She put me on hold and then transferred me to the automotive department. I explained to the person who answered how I had been misconnected, and he said he would transfer me back to the operator. In the transition, the line went dead.

Following this slightly aggrivating incident, I came up with what I thought to be a clever ploy to circumvent this harrowing system. I called back, this time explaining to the operator that I had a problem with the tires I had just purchased. Surely this would get me connected to the pharmacy so that I could obtain the vital instructions that could very well prevent my death by a drug overdose had I tried to guess how much of the medicine to take. No such luck- my call was transferred to sporting goods.

Now, this was starting to become a game for me, and I was bound and determined to reach the end of this telecommunications maze and claim my prize- “Take twice daily with water before meals”, or something like that. So, in my next call, I explained that I had a problem with my new fishing pole. Off to hardware.

Called back to say they mixed the wrong color paint- off to lawn and garden.

This pattern repeated itself for a few more rounds until it all came to an abrupt end with a transfer to lingerie. I simply could not bring myself to calling back with the explanation that I had a problem with my bra strap.

I was beaten!

As for the prescription? A few minutes on the good’ ol Internet and I find what I need at the pharmacutical company’s web site.

Some say that computers are no substitiute for people. It appears that, at times, the opposite is also true.

Stay tuned for more hair-curling customer dis-service stories!

When you get to the age where you are officially over the hill, there’s two things for sure that happen. One, gravity works a lot better. (This is true for both sexes.) Secondly, doctors start performing more and more tests on you so that they can better monitor your slow but sure demise.

During my last annual physical, my doctor informed me that I was now at the age where I should get a colonoscopy for precautionary measures. Now, the procedure itself didn’t seem so bad, but the preparation sounded like sheer hell. They put you on a diet where the delicacies are chicken broth and popsicles (and even then cherry is taboo), and you spend all day on the throne. You become, as Larry the Cable Guy puts it, “King of the Poopers.”

He referrerd me to a specialist who performs these procedures, and I managed to ignore the messages from the nurse who called several times to schedule the appointment. I could not, however, ignore my wife’s encouragements to get the deed done. I must say, she looks out for my health a lot more than I do myself. I like to think it’s because she loves me so much, but I really believe it’s just a sign that I’m not carrying enough life insurance.

I managed to procrastinate for about six months, but, seeing that my lady wouldn’t let up, I finally caved. Today was the big day. So, yesterday was “the prep”. The instructions are to drink a half gallon of this concoction that’s supposed to clean you out. I hadn’t drank so much fluid so fast since I was on the eight man keg team for my college fraternity. I felt like I had swallowed Lake Ponchartrain.

That wasn’t the worst part of it, though. That evening, it was our turn to work the bingo for the Knights of Columbus. I have a ritual for this duty. I start off in the kitchen cooking the cheeseburgers. Being the chef, I always treat myself to a nice big double cheeseburger, smothered with fried onions, mustard, and lettuce. So here I am cooking and smelling these cheeseburgers, denied my usual pleasure. I glance back to see my wife at the other end of the kitchen, snickering as she prepares the popcorn (which is my normal desert, another pleasure that I am denied on this particular evening).

So today I go through the procedure, and I’m given a clean bill of health. That doesn’t surprise me, given the special high fiber cereal that she always feeds me for breakfast. It tastes like I’m eating pine bark mulch with a few nuts tossed in.

On my way out, the nurse warns me to consume light meals for the next day or so. Screw that; I made a beeline out of the clinic straight to Logan’s Roadhouse for a big steak and french fries.

Having endured this ordeal, I think that I’m going to go out and get a supplimental life insurance policy. That way I ought to be able to smoke and drink to my heart’s content, and avoid the doctor’s office without my wife’s objections.

What can I say? I like to live my life according to the lyrics of Jimmy Buffett songs. There’s one that goes:

“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Today’s blog post is going up a little later than I had planned. Let me explain why.

I woke up at 6 AM, early for me on a Saturday morning. I contemplated the day ahead as I enjoyed my coffee and newspaper. It was going to be a great one. There was no customary honey-do list waiting for me on the kitchen table; the grass didn’t need mowing; nothing around the house needed fixing. The only item on the agenda was my blog post, which I could knock out by eight. I smiled, realizing that I had the rest of the long day free to puruse whatever mindless activity I fancied.

A few things came quickly to mind. I could catalog my CD collection; I could waste a few hours on the Internet searching for some good jokes about various types of people and animals who walk into a bar. Saturdays like these come to my house about as frequently as a total eclipse of the sun. Man, I was in tall cotton!

My wife had mentioned to me that she was planning to rent a cleaner to do some carpets. Sure, babe, I figured. Go ahead and knock yourself out while I retire to my man-cave for the day. Little did I know that she had an ulterior motive. After nearly twenty-five years of being married to her, it was my own fault that I didn’t see it coming.

Returning with the cleaner, my lovely bride casually mentioned that she might need “a little bit of help.”  OK, what husband who values his marriage could turn down a request like that? So, she starts juggling the various bottles of chemicals that they sold her and going through the instructions with that puzzled look like she was trying to figure out how to decontaminate a chemical weapons storage bunker.

Right about that time, my hopes for a relaxing day sank faster than a Sopranos’ victim in his concrete boots. Hubby in shining armor to the rescue!

Several hours later, I had successfully completed the task. Great; there was still enough time left in the day to find at least a few good bar jokes on the web.  Then, over our late lunch of leftover pizza, she made the comment that she would also like to wash the cars.  My last little bubble of hope went up in flames like the Hindenberg. 

So, now it’s 5 PM. The CD’s sit uncatalogued and I don’t have any new jokes to tell at the party tonight.

Babe, please don’t give me false hopes again next Saturday. Just leave me the honey-do list on the breakfast table.

I haven’t really made it a habit to post about my personal experiences here on this blog. But, today being my birthday, I figured what the hell?. How old am I, you ask? Pick any cliché that applies to the aging baby boomer crowd, and it fits. I won’t repeat them; you’ve heard them all.

I’ve often thought, why do folks my age even celebrate birthdays? Do we really think, “Hey! I’m another year closer to the grave; what about that! I wish I would just hurry up and die!” I only have that thought after a night of heavy drinking. (Come to think of it, I did have that very thought when I woke this morning. Or was that yesterday morning? Maybe it was both mornings.) Well, tonight it’s time to do it all again- going out to dinner with some great friends to enjoy my two favorite red things- meat and wine.

As I write this around five in the afternoon I have to say, my birthday has been absolutely picture perfect so far. I went to work at six this morning for a conference call with our home office overseas. It was a review by what seems like the thirteenth of twenty-nine committees who we need to convince to approve the project I am working on. It’s hard to keep them all straight, but I think this one was for The Committee to Make Sure Your Power Point Slides Have Pretty Graphics. Well, we passed it with flying colors, thanks to the picture of the Keystone Kops we used as background for the organizational chart.

Then, when I got home, two miracles occurred. First, my sister remembered my birthday and sent me a card- and it was a great card, too! She hasn’t remembered my birthday since they cancelled Gilligan’s Island. Then, I asked my wife to surprise me with my birthday gift, and she gave me something I actually liked and that I hadn’t already bought for myself! We are on a roll!

Boy, I gotta’ be dreaming; don’t wake me up; I’ll probably arouse wishing I’d hurry up and die.

A friend recently invited me to a pool party at his house. His neighborhood is one of those hoity-toity ones that has a Home Owners Association. You know about those, right? That’s where, under the full Power of the Law, they can send you all kinds of nasty letters if your garden gnome had an earlobe broken off. “Super-glue it back on before we park a busload of lawyers in your driveway!”

In such neighborhoods, they like to put these speed bumps in the road every fifteen feet or so, all under the guise of safety. So it is in my friend’s neighborhood. I’m all about safety, but they seem be taking this a bit to the extreme. In fact, one particular speed bump had a roadside marker noting it as the highest point in the state. How they can make it over these in their little BMW’s and Saaabs without spinning wheels I’ll never know.

So there I am, driving to the party, with a six pack on the floorboard in the back seat. With every bump I cross, I hear those bottles rattling. Luckily, none broke, but it turned out I wasn’t out of the woods. Upon my arrival at the party, like a good little guest, I immediately stake out my place in the kitchen. (Everyone at any party seems to congregate in the kitchen; it wouldn’t matter if the Rolling Stones were playing at the poolside, everyone would still hang out in the kitchen.) I open my first beer, and an eruption the size of Old Faithful ensues, and I am doused with a Shiner Bock shower. I should have paid attention to the rumbling as I removed the bottle from the six-pack, but I was ready for a beer after navigating streets that would make a mountain biker drool.

I honestly think that these speed bumps they are putting on the streets these days are a conspiracy. It’s been promulgated by auto repair shops and companies that manufacture shock absorbers.

I finally understand the fascination that some seem to have for monster trucks. They may need a fire-truck ladder to get in, but those darned speed bumps don’t faze them any more than if they ran over a twig.